Ashes
by CymbalinesHalo
Summary: While assisting in the recolonization of Moria, Legolas hears a voice drift out of the darkness and in searching for its source discovers a profound mystery and an ancient treasure that was thought forever lost...Rating is R to be safe.
1. Disillusionment

Mandatory disclaimer: I do not own any of the LOTR characters, Tolkien does. The rest are mine. This takes place after the Ring has been destroyed, my main departure from canon is that the Elves do not diminish and sail West.  
'Ashes'  
  
Chapter One  
  
Clear water gushed through a narrow cleft in the ancient stone wall, spilling in a glittering wash onto a cracked slab of granite, and coming to rest in a wide, still pool. The voice of the falling water filled the vast chamber of naked rock with echoes and murmurs; but there were none to answer them, save one, and he remained silent. Legolas stood on the stony bank of the waterfall's spillway, watching the water as it fell. He picked a smooth stone out of the icy water and squeezed it in his fist, feeling its weight, its coldness.  
  
From far away he could hear the dwarves toasting yet again their triumphant return to their ancestral home; the loud rise of their boasts, the merry cheering. The beer flowed, but Legolas was kinless in such a place, the only one of his kind among the great dwarven company. He sat on the desolate shore with his back to a granite boulder and turned the stone he had picked up over and over in his pale graceful hands.  
  
Moria. Even though the Shadow was falling away from the depths of the mines and the dwarves had returned to rule, the place held no endearment for him. The dense smell of water and earth and metal, the wet tang of the ever present chill left nothing untouched, until all was heavy with its insistent reek. The mountain was like a great, grey cage above and around him, austere even in its most generous beauty, cruel in its sincerest kindness. Legolas sighed, suddenly conscious of the deep exhaustion that had settled in his body. How long had it been, now? The campaign seemed to have already lasted an eternity, the endless dark made time void or pulled it out so that seconds became in themselves, eternities. Moira inexorably crept into him, stole his memories of warmth and light until it was hard to believe that places yet existed in the sun or air. Bit by bit, the dark, the damp, the close air ground him down like sandstone.  
  
If it weren't for his promise, he would had left, long ago. He smirked ruefully, the remembrance was bitter. His promise. A lot of good it did. Leading a campaign that didn't need his leading, for a people who still distrusted him. It had been Gimli's dying wish, for his people to reclaim their once great kingdom, for Legolas to take his place in driving back the Shadow from the mines. This he had done, in Gimli's name, for his friends' memory, and had been met with nothing but indifference and polite distrust. The great deed which he set out to do had, in the end, been as good as nothing. With a mixture of grief and frustration, he threw the stone he held into the water. It splashed once and disappeared but the echo of its splash reverberated in the cavern for a long time.  
  
Legolas sat near the waters' edge and stared into the blackness, letting the sound of the water wash around and through him. It was strangely comforting, even in a place such as this. Slowly, by degrees, he let his senses fall into the sounds until he was no longer conscious of the cold rock under him, the clammy dampness of the air as he breathed it in, breathed it out.  
  
The voice that came to him was so soft, he wasn't sure at first he was hearing it. It blended with the rushing of the water, rising and falling with the cadence of the words that it carried. Legolas sat up and listened more intently, struggling to catch even the barest shiver of the words.  
  
"Moria," the voice sighed feebly, "Mother Moria, at the hour of my death, enfold me in your velvet night. Though my kin abandon me, you will not forsake me, Oh Mother of the Mountains' Heart."  
  
Legolas was standing now, his body as tight as a guy wire as he strained to hear the last gasps of the voice as it faded. His heart was hammering in his throat as he stood, stunned by what he had heard. For the words were in Quenya, ancient Quenya. 


	2. Amor Fati

Ashes  
  
Chapter Two  
  
Miles, it seemed, through the stony dark the voice carried, leading him onward.  
  
"The wheat fails." It was saying now, "The mines give no ore, the hands of the craftsman hang limp at the forge.these things pass and come to pass and yet You stand as You will stand until the light of all stars vanish."  
  
These last words were feeble, broken by long gasps. There was a long silence followed by a harsh scraping, as if something large and heavy was dragged across stone. The sounds were barely echoing now. He must be close. Legolas paused, squinting to see in the muddy light of his torch; its feeble light revealed only a scattering of shattered rocks and a heap of rags and sticks on the tunnel floor far ahead.  
  
"I am not afraid, here at my ending." the voice said in a whisper, "I will go gracefully into your dark, great Moria, where my fathers began and now rest evermore."  
  
Legolas stepped forward, deeper into the tunnel, one hand on his knife. Out of the corner of his eye, to his horror, he glimpsed the heap of rags shiver like a dying butterfly and then lie still.  
  
"I. am not afraid." the voice said and now there was no doubt to its origin.  
  
Legolas knelt down in the broken shale, stabbing his torch into a crevice between two rocks, and lightly touched the prone figure. What was presumably its head was covered with a hood of coarse cloth that flaked with rust or dried blood and it clutched something to itself, hidden in the folds of its rotting cloak. Carefully, so as not to cause the creature pain, he brushed the hood back.  
  
Eyes opened to see him, opening to see light for the first time in many weeks. They seemed huge in the emaciated face, sea-blue and rimmed with tears. It was a woman, a human woman, and Eru only knew how long she had been in the dark, slowly starving to death. Her hair was dun, the color of earth; it trailed in a knotted mass under her head and spooled out onto the floor. Her neck was white and frail, like the stem of a flower; it looked too weak to bear the heavy burden of her head. At her nape a crusted weal extended up into her hairline where a patch of her hair had been torn free. Legolas eased her up to sit against the tunnel wall and although she tensed, she did not fight him.  
  
"I am Legolas, of the Elven Kingdom of Mirkwood." he said quietly although she looked away as soon as he spoke. "You have nothing to fear from me."  
  
"I am not afraid." She breathed, shifting slightly. The sight of her thin stick legs scrabbling from under her rough cloak squeezed his heart with pity. Her gaze continued out, over and through him. She shifted again and the heavy fold of her cloak peeled away to reveal the burden in her arms.  
  
The cover of a book glittered in the light, bound in coral colored silk and mythril filigree. Inlaid gems glowed warmly in shades of crimson and amber, catching the light of the torch. Legolas knit his brow, looked at the woman, questioning. The woman met his gaze and for a moment sharp awareness swelled in her eyes, stunning him with their intense clarity. She pressed the open book to her chest with her ruined hands, squeezing so hard so as to bring fresh blood to the half healed wounds that slashed their way from her knuckles to elbow. Even in her weakness Legolas sensed her intense will gather like a mighty storm and set itself against him. Silently challenging, she set her teeth and stared him down. He knew where he had seen that look before; in the sphinx, in snakes.  
  
"Lady, your treasure is safe. I mean to take nothing from you that you will not freely give."  
  
The severity in her eyes faltered, only for a moment.  
  
"Please." He said, this time in the same Quenya she had been using. "I am honorable." He waited a few moments, to let the words sink in. He leaned in, closer to her, meeting her eyes unafraid. "Lady, your strength will fast fail you. I don't believe your true wish is to die in this black place."  
  
Her gaze softened, slightly, and for a second he thought he saw a look of sadness and pain cross her face like a shadow. Slowly, still keeping her eyes locked with his, she released her grip. Dark sticky rivulets of her blood patterned the silk cover of the book, mingled with the glittering gems. It was conditional surrender, and Legolas accepted it, as it was, graciously.  
  
"Who did this to you?" he asked her, reaching out a hand to trace the lines of the mending cuts on her arms. She flinched at the contact and closed her eyes, swallowing hard. They were deep, most of them. If they had been on the inside of her arms they would have been fatal. He felt her pulse through the thin veil of her skin, it was weak, and twittered in her veins like the breath of a bird. He hadn't much time.  
  
"I will take you from this place." he said, gathering her in his arms. "The dwarves are not far."  
  
He lifted her; it was like lifting a bundle of kindling. She tried, feebly, to rebel against his touch, but her wasted muscles only trembled and would not obey. Fresh pain assaulted her with the effort, so severe it made her gasp. Her strength had reached at last beyond even that which her will could sustain. There was no more point in fighting it.  
  
No longer caring where she was or what would happened to her, she laid her head in the hollow of his collarbone and blinked at the smudgy flame of the torch as it wavered in the damp air. It was a beacon in the damp black, like the sun, she remembered, rising on a dewy spring morning. The sun.her consciousness faded, blurring reality and a thousand interwoven rememberances of light, sounds, tactile imprints of the world she used to inhabit. Jostled against the supple leather of his jerkin, her mind drifted in a gentle sea. The warmth and scent of him was all around her, oakmoss and green chypre. It reminded her of a forest floor, dappled with light. The image blossomed in her mind like a golden flower, and she surrendered to it, uncaring.  
  
Legolas hurried. As he carried her through the dark any moment he waited for the breath to fade in her throat, for the pulse that danced through her to weaken and fail. But it did not, and her weak breaths came steadily one after another.  
  
He came at last upon the outer guards.  
  
"Hail! We were wondering when you would rejoin us!" One of them shouted lustily when they saw the glimmer of his torch. "You've missed half the feast with your incessant wandering."  
  
"I arrive with a grievous burden." Legolas said as he came into range, "Keep your voices down." The dwarves surveyed the bundle of rags in his arms, their jolly mood paled by a glimpse of the pale stick-like limbs.  
  
"I found her many miles back in the unconquered Earth; she will die unless tended to." He did not mention her words or the book, which was still clasped in her arms, hidden in the folds of her cloak.  
  
The guards stepped back to let him pass, looking grim. "Then by all means, Master elf, we will not keep you from your task." 


	3. Knitting

Chapter Three  
  
"Knitting"  
  
When Legolas arrived at his chambers in the Upper Regions, he found the door ajar and Giemsa, a she-dwarf, busily building the nights' fire in the grate. Startled by his sudden appearance, she jerked suddenly upwards and the flint box that was in her hands fell to the floor with a clatter.  
  
"Oh." she said when she saw the burden he carried. She dropped her eyes. "I didn't realize you would be back so soon, Prince." She fidgeted, threw a few bits of tinder that were in her hands at the growing fire, then, seeing her chance for a hasty exit, paced past him toward the doorway, still looking down.  
  
"Giemsa."  
  
She stopped abruptly and turned around, folding her arms across her chest. She was painfully careful not to meet his gaze directly.  
  
"I will need water and a kettle to heat it in. Some beetroot sugar or honey if you have it. A feather bedroll, and some blankets. And I'd like you to have the tub sent up as soon as you can."  
  
She nodded once, smartly, and left. Legolas was left alone with his thoughts and the faint crackling of the fire in the near empty room. Carefully, he laid the unconscious woman on his bed. She was still breathing, albeit with difficulty, and her pulse was faint. If he could get her hydrated, she might survive. He stood up and looked her over, his eyes drawn again and again to the book she clasped in her cruelly punished hands. How she had come by the book was a compelling mystery. Her presence in Moria at all defied explanation. He knelt by the edge of the bed and gingerly eased the book from under her hands. Her fingers flexed instinctively and she whimpered once, in her throat, but did not wake. Legolas opened the book, searching for the text she had been reading from in the hopes of some sort of explanation. He riffled, turned pages, searching fruitlessly. The text was in a form of unknown Dwarvish, and was, for all intensive purposes, unreadable.  
  
There was a rough knock at the door. Legolas folded the book in a square of cloth and placed it in his pack before answering it. Giemsa padded in bearing a collection of items in her stout arms. She set everything down on the rough hewn table-the only other piece of furniture in the room-and began to go through them.  
  
"We had no sugar." She said, frowning slightly behind her reddish beard. She pushed a small clay canister sealed with red wax toward him, and a spoon made of carved horn.  
  
"This is what we have."  
  
Legolas broke the seal and surveyed the contents. Buckwheat honey. It was coarse, but would do the job. Giemsa handed him a large sewn skin, a small iron cooking pot, a dented copper tea kettle, and a stack of folded cloths.  
  
"Here. Water, kettles, and some cloths for when the bath comes. The bedroll is here." she motioned at the bundle at her feet. "I could only find one blanket, so you'll have to make do."  
  
"Thank you, Giemsa."  
  
"The bath should be up in a few hours. Almost everyone is yet at the feast or it would be sooner."  
  
"Thank you. That will be all, then."  
  
Giemsa shot a glance in the direction of the unconscious woman.  
  
"Frail as dust." She muttered under her breath, glancing up at Legolas. She shook her head, a pursed lip sneer on her face, as if she were inspecting inferior goods. "I hope she makes it, though even if she survives it is hardly worth the trouble. They never last long, their kind." She shrugged.  
  
Finding little in the way of a response from him, Giemsa turned and ambled away, slamming the door with a bang behind her.  
  
Legolas stared in the direction she had gone. After living among the dwarves for so long their often expressed disdain for the other races, including himself, had lost its sting, but it was still something he could never bring himself to understand. He wandered over to his bed where the woman lay in a crumpled heap and watched the pulse tick weakly in her thin neck. Human lives were ineffably short, a beat of a birds' wing; they sprouted and fell around him like wheat, it seemed. It was hard, to watch them, their bright loves giving way again and again as the wind of time blew through them and made them weak. So many of their lives were oftentimes nothing but unmitigated pain, but still they sealed it up in themselves somehow and carried it, on and on. He sighed. He was the rock, immovable and always the same, around which their lives washed like ocean water. But all of this did not matter because there was only one thing to do: The woman might not survive, but at least he could allow her to die with dignity, in a safe place where she could be warm and have someone to be with her and honor her in her last moments.  
  
What would it be like, he wondered as he assembled supplies from his pack, to feel yourself fade, your body betraying you; to give yourself to the swallowing darkness without knowing for certain there were any arms open to receive you on the other side? He turned again and looked at her, studied the bony cage like architecture of her foot where it stuck out from under her cloak. A sense of deep respect swept through him and the thought: you are stronger than you look.  
  
Everything was in order. Kneeling on the stone floor in front of the hearth, Legolas placed the empty teakettle before him and took off the lid. He took in a deep breath and quietly began the ritual he had performed so many times; on muddy battlefields, light-filled forest floors, on smooth marble floors safe within palace walls. The remembrances of so many years, different yet all the same, blurred together until they were no longer distinguishable. Trancelike, he poured water from an earthenware bowl into the kettle, just filling the bottom. He swirled the water around in the bottom of the kettle and emptied it onto the flagstones in front of the fire. He refilled the kettle from the bowl and repeated the motion, focusing all his senses and will into the water. Eyes closed, he filled the kettle for the last time and allowed it to remain. His hands closed around the palm-sized pile of finely chipped willow bark he had set out. Let the strength of the trees carry your pain, he thought as he released the bark into the kettle. Herbs were next, a mixture of dried leaves and flowers; the wild, summer life of the fields and meadow. He took a large pinch of coarse gray salt from a vial in his pack and placed it in the palm of his hand, rubbing it hard into his skin. He put his hands together and held them over the kettle, softly breathing a prayer for life, for healing. He opened his hands and the salt fell like snow into the water and disappeared. Legolas opened his eyes. The ritual was complete. He put the lid on the kettle and put it on to boil.  
  
He was spooning honey into the earthen bowl when the woman began to stir. She did not open her eyes, but her hands opened and closed, and her fingers flexed, closing on air. The air rasped in her lungs as she drew in a croupy breath. With incredible effort, she spoke to him in a thick querulous whisper:  
  
"Give me back my book. Take it when I am dead." She drew in another lungful of raspy air. The corner of her cracked mouth turned up slightly in a rueful smirk and she opened one crusted eye to look at him. "You will not have to wait long, Prince."  
Legolas retrieved the book from his pack. He held in his hands it for a moment and ran his fingers over the intricate binding. Ancient power wept from the book like mist, speaking to him of awakening kings, newborn earth, and stone that had not received its curse. He held it a moment more before setting it down before her.  
  
"Open it." she demanded.  
  
"Where?"  
  
"It does not matter." He opened the book for her and watched as she carefully placed one hand down on the gilded vellum page and swept over it with her bruised fingertips, sightlessly tracing the raised lines of the letters. Slowly, with great effort, she began to translate, whispering the words in halting Sindarin. Legolas listened to her in silence; the words that spilled from her broken lips were beautiful and made his heart hurt with the depth of their eloquent truth.  
  
"Joy is sorrow unmasked." she said, in a whisper shaking with the last of her strength, "They are one and the same. The deeper sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. The cup that...holds your wine is the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven; and the lute that soothes the very core of your spirit is the same wood that was hollowed with knives." She trembled, her eyelids fluttering.  
  
"When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight." Her dry tongue scraped in her mouth, the words choking off into a dull croak. She coughed wetly, and took in a harsh breath.  
  
Legolas put his hand across the text where she had been reading. "You should rest now. You are wearying yourself with an unnecessary hardship." Blind, her cold fingertips ran over the back of his hand and found the letters on the other side of it. Her mouth moved silently, still translating. He grasped the book and began to pull it away from her. Her fingers pressed hard into the pages, still unwilling to surrender the book to him. A moment passed, and then she seemed to change her mind, snaking her hands back to rest at her side.  
  
"It is just as well, for now." she said, letting him take the book and pack it away, "It is fitting that the last of my work be such nonsense, beautiful though it may be." She said this, but in her hunger numbed mind the words stuck and burned like tarred arrows, and endlessly she weighed them, first on one scale, then on another, until her mind tumbled with thought. "Remember what I have said, Prince. It is the last you will likely hear of it. The dwarves will never tell you the rest of it, they would kill you just for the hearing, if they knew." "Who are you?" Legolas said guardedly, "What is your name?" The womans' breath rasped several times, sharply in her throat. It was impossible to tell if she was laughing or sobbing. "You come from a fair race, Prince, but I could not put upon even you to carry the burden that is my name."  
  
Legolas knit his brow, looking stern and grim. "Of all the burdens to carry in the world, the lightest is a name. I should still like to call you something, if only to honor the memory of your passing."  
  
The woman sighed weakly. "I suppose it is your nature." For a while she thought in silence while Legolas sat beside her and watched the fire crumble into glowing ash. At last she turned one corner of her slit-like mouth up in a smirk. "Arwarthiel", she said, "Or Gwauriel, take your pick."  
  
Legolas scowled deeper. "These are not fair names. I would have you choose better."  
  
"Arwarthiel, then. It is the lesser evil, yes? It will be Arwarthiel, " the woman gasped. She shifted in her rags and the sound was like the sharp north wind in fall leaves. "Take heart, you will not have to bear the hearing of it long." She lay back to rest and catch her breath. With mute terror, she realized that she could not. A leaden weariness was sinking into her now, and her body was clay and her mind a feeble flame. Shivering with fear and effort, she forced her lungs to fill, and empty, again and again. The darkness was close around her now, and all it would take would be for her to falter once, just once, and she would be lost forever. Minutes, hours passed in gnawing pain and desperate effort. From a million miles outside herself she felt her body being moved, carried, and laid down again. The air was warmer, somehow, and she felt the golden weight of light on her face.  
  
Legolas straightened a rumpled corner of the feather mattress in its new place on the floor and went to pull the kettle off the fire. He poured the contents of the kettle, now a dark amber color, into the earthen bowl and added some water to cool it to drinking temperature. He stirred the infusion to be sure the honey dissolved and brought it before her.  
  
"Drink this. It will ease your pain." He slipped an arm behind her back and gently eased her up. Eyes closed, trembling like a newborn, she touched the edge of the bowl with her lips and sipped carefully, unsure of what was being given to her. The taste that met her was grassy and wild, earthily sweet and biting in a way that felt good to her parched throat. She began to drink greedily, desperate for moisture.  
  
"Not so much, at first. You will be sick." Legolas pulled the bowl away from her and placed it next to him on the floor. Long minutes drifted by, punctuated only by Arwarthiels' labored breathing. Every quarter hour he gave her drink, admonishing her sometimes in Sindarin, sometimes in Quenya to go slow, to be patient with the healing.  
  
Gradually, by degrees, warmth from the draught gathered under her breastbone and wrapped around her heart like gentle hands. She felt her lungs open, grow strong, and the peaceful stillness that came in the wake of her pain made her want to weep from sheer relief. In this stillness she drifted, the death-fear leaving her, and allowed herself to rest at last. Hours loped by and somewhere inside himself, Legolas knew that miles above him in the open air the sun was rising, spanning pale winter light over the snowy peaks of the mountain. His thoughts of light took him far to the east, to his homeland. There was the solstice festival now, and his father would have lanterns strung in the boughs of the great trees and the dark nights would glitter with songs, celebration, and new-fallen snow. He sighed. It was useless to dwell on what could not be, no matter how beautiful it was to think on it. He was better served to concentrate on the fulfilling of his vow and now, of healing.  
  
Once again he brought the bowl to the woman's mouth and watched her drink, blind and helpless as an infant. Arwarthiel. He frowned at the name. Abandoned, forsaken one. What bitterness in her short life had caused her, standing even at the threshold between this world and the next, to willingly shoulder such a name? What did she hide by naming herself thus? Was she wanted? Dangerous? Or was she simply a refugee who had lost her kin through some accident or betrayal?  
  
His thoughts were interrupted by harsh pounding on the door.  
  
"Come in." he said, rising from his place by the fire. Two sturdy dwarves trundled in, carrying a polished brass bath full of steaming soapy water. They set it down in the center of the room with a bang, slopping water over the rim of the tub and onto the floor. One of the dwarves set a bundle of towels and a bucket of hot rinse water on the tabletop. The dwarf cast a curious glance at the prone figure lying sleeping on the mattress in front of the fire and then looked knowingly at his coworker with a sarcastic smirk. The other dwarf set down a bar of soap around which a thin cloth had been wrapped, nodded curtly at Legolas and smirked back at his friend. They left amiably, but through the closed door, as they walked away to their next assignment, he heard one of them sniggering.  
  
"Don't elves know that you can never get the dirt off a worm no matter how hard you scrub?"  
  
"Worm, nothing. That's the Princlings' new concubine. She's a pretty one, eh?" said the other, braying. Burning with indignation, Legolas turned away as their bawdy laughter echoed and finally died away.  
  
"Pay no heed to them, they have idle tongues." he said, kneeling down next to her. If she heard him somewhere in her drifting sleep, she made no sign. "Besides, not all dwarves behave thus, or direct such malice against other kinds." His memory flickered to his friend, to the long proud line of Gimli and his fathers' father now resting in their tombs of polished stone. "Most are noble, and very brave." he added, his voice dimming. The woman shifted her head, her eyes moving back and forth under her eyelids. The corner of her mouth twitched and her lips soundlessly formed words that Legolas could not guess at. Leaning over her, he placed his hand lightly on her sternum. Her breathing was stronger and less labored, although even through the cloth that covered her he could feel pneumonia beginning to rattle in the deep caverns of her lungs. He sat back on his heels and undid the fastenings of his jerkin, pulling it off in one fluid motion. Rolling up the sleeves of his light undershirt up to his elbows, he considered the woman's ragged cloak. It was so filthy, and of such poor make that it was not worth saving. Moreover, she was deeply tangled in its voluminous folds; it would be difficult to find its closure without unduly disturbing her. It would be best to cut it off her, he decided, and once she was free, burn it.  
  
He began in the bundled cloth around her neck, carefully working the blade of his ivory handled knife through it, stopping to tear it by hand where there it was too close to her skin to safely work with the blade. As he cut, the smell of the cloth rose to greet him; a pungent, sour tang of dried blood and ground in sweat, the dark mouldering smell that pervaded over everything in Moria. He had torn the cloth open to her shoulder now, revealing the hard angry knot of bone and tendon where her clavicle met the wasted muscles of her arm. Legolas set his knife down and grasped the free edges of the cloth and tore them briskly apart, dirt raining over his lap and the floor. Surprising even him, Arwarthiel roused with a sound of strangled grief, her feeble hands blindly flexing for the remnants of the rotten cloth in an effort to cover herself. Her eyes squeezed in pain and her mouth moved, at first voiceless but gaining momentum as she found breath.  
  
"No, no, don't do this," she whimpered faintly, her words slurring and trailing off in her sleep-numbed exhaustion "you don't have to do this. It won't help, It won't change anything." Her eyes tracked furiously behind her eyelids, and she choked with voiceless sobs.  
  
"I'm not going to hurt you, Arwarthiel." Legolas placed his hand on her sweating forehead. "It is not good for you to remain in these rags any longer-"  
  
"Don't, please don't. Jenadorn, please. Don't force me." She writhed, unhearing, flexing her fingers. Her head wagged back and forth, denying, and her lashes were wet with her scant tears. She cried aloud in pain, a thin feeble sound of agony, and her hands clutched helplessly at the cloth between her legs. Legolas drew back in shock. Somewhere in her mind the memory of her rape was being played out, although if it had befallen her recently or far in the past it was impossible to tell. And human women, unlike elves, did not have the ability to die and end their suffering at the memory of it.  
  
Arwarthiel gave a faint cry of pain and fear. "It hurts, it hurts," she hissed through her teeth, repeating the phrase over and over in her remembered terror as if it were a secret meant only for him to know. She shuddered twice like a fish trying to free itself from a deep-swallowed hook and still her ruined hands clenched and unclenched on the cloth. "Why do you do this, why?" Her words trailed off into an unintelligible garble of soft sounds that was like weeping only without tears.  
  
Patient as the sea, Legolas waited as the herbs he had given her pulled her mind deeper into sleep. To pass the time, and to calm her, he sang a low sweet song about starlight and the snow falling and the blue and white world of winter giving way at last to the newness of spring. He finished his song and looked at Arwarthiel grimly. She was sleeping and still, but he was troubled by what he had witnessed, and the heavy weight of the knowledge of it made him feel sad when he looked at her.  
  
He rose, and added a few more split logs to the fire before kneeling down beside her once again. At first he was afraid to touch her, but she did not stir when he gently moved her hands from where they clutched at the ragged edge of her cloak. Using the edge as a guide, he carefully slit the garment open the rest of the way with his knife and lifted it from her. She was naked under the cloak, her skin waxy and pale where it could be seen under the dirt, and the hollowness of her ribs and collarbone were painful to look upon. The joints of her knees and wrists stood out like wads of coiled rope and on the outside curve of her pelvis a compression ulcer blossomed like an obscene flower where the dark stone of Moria had bit her, purple and black and white against her numbed skin.  
  
Bending low, he picked her up in his arms, her hair trailing on the floor like a banner, and eased her into the bath. The bath had been made for dwarves, it was vast in comparison to her, and Legolas had to support her in the small of her back with one arm to keep her head above the water. He sang as he bathed her, crooning a song he had heard other healers sing. It was ancient, he had heard, as old as the stars. It soothed him as he worked and as he opened his heart to it he felt himself healed of his sorrow. Bit by bit the dirt of Moria washed away and became a memory. Arwarthiel's cloak had long burned to ash by the time Legolas lifted her from the bath and wrapped her in clean towels that he had set out in front of the fire to warm. After she had rested for a little while, he treated the ulceration on her hip with lichen sap and wrapped her hands with gauze after treatment with the same.  
  
She rested easier now, he thought, as he looked at her. Dressed in one of his spare undershirts, her wounds bound and clean, she seemed almost peaceful. Her color seemed better, her skin was a little less ashen, but he knew enough about the healer's art not to be overly hopeful so early. There was still the risk of infection, contagion, any number of things yet could rise up to assail her fragile body; she had not the strength to stand against any for long. Again he roused her to drink. Laying her back to rest, he studied her. There were few clues about her age, given her present condition. Heavy threads of silver hair wisped at her temples, coiling and mingling with the rest of ash blonde. The fine lines around her mouth and at her eyes could have been brought about, if not solely by despair and hunger, then by just about anything she may had been forced to endure in the last months. If she survived, perhaps then there would be time to have answers. He sat and rested on his empty bedframe and consigned himself, unhappily, to ignorance. 


	4. Awake in the Dark

Chapter Four  
  
For weeks Arwarthiel lingered in a fitful sleep, whimpering with fever. Sometimes, at odd hours, she would wake and look at him wordlessly with her great sad eyes, holding him there on the promise of speaking, then weariness would overtake her like a cloud shadowing the sun and her lucidity would be gone almost as soon as it appeared. Legolas spoke to her often, speaking in the lilting melody of his native tongue. It was comforting to speak it again, in such a place of blackness and death, and heartened him to his task. As the days slid by in the dark, he found himself speaking to her of his homeland, of many things both beautiful and fell seen and done in the long millennia of his life. In the face of these disclosures she offered nothing of herself in return, only looked at him and swallowed his words into herself without apology. Day after day he tended her, and it was only the silent riddles of her body that answered any question he might ask of her.  
  
It was another morning, marked by the subtle knowing inside himself and the slight increase in the traffic in the hallway outside his room. Legolas drifted up from sleep to find Arwarthiel already awake, sitting up, and blinking at him with an expression of curiosity. He smiled at her, pleased at any sign of improvement in her slow recovery.  
  
"Good Morning. You might like to try something solid to eat today?"  
  
She turned away from him and stared into her lap as he got up and sat on the floor next to her. He took her cotton swaddled arms in his own, cradling her elbow in the palm of his hand. With careful grace he undid the wrapping and surveyed the healing skin underneath. Her wounds were now deep crimson scabs, the swelling had finally receded from the surrounding flesh and the color of it was a mottled yellow as the bruising faded. All of these were encouraging signs. For a moment he held her hands, gently forcing her palms to lay flat against his own. Arwarthiel squeezed her eyes shut and a tremor ran through her as she bore the pain. After a few minutes, she began to whimper.  
  
"I know, I know." He murmured. "Just a little while more." He hated this part, hurting her, but it was necessary or her tendons would heal in a contracted state; without stretching them her hands would never be useful again.  
  
"It is over." He said, releasing her at last. Still cradled in his open palms, he watched as her fingers folded again into curled fists like leaves furling backward into a bud. Her hands were well known to him now, they were broad palmed and sturdy, the strong unlovely hands of a fieldworker. The bones of her wrist were not standing out as severely as he remembered them when he first saw them, and the dull throb of the artery pulse where it lay resting on his fingertips was strong and steady. Legolas laid her arms back in her lap and Arwarthiel sighed in relief. Rising, he fetched for her a bowl of water and a small bundle of cloth and sat beside her again.  
  
"I thought you might like a change from what you've been getting. I can imagine that nothing but tea and barley gruel and beef broth after a while would be rather tiresome." He undid the bundle to reveal a small heap of dried fruit, bright glossy medallions of orange and red and amber, the essence of the autumntime harvest. A faint smile played across Arwarthiel's face and she put out her hand and fumblingly grasped a sticky date with her fingertips. Her smile faded as pain flared like a shock of blue flame from the contact, and she dropped the date, her breath coming in gasps from pain and frustration.  
  
Legolas frowned. "It is my hope that the pain will fade from you in time." He picked up the date and brought it to her mouth. Reluctantly, she took a bite and chewed, scowling furiously at her hands. When she had finished chewing, he held the remainder of the date out for her to bite.  
  
"I think I will feed myself now." She said, meeting his eyes, and although her angry voice was gravelly the Sindarin she was speaking made it sound beautiful. "It has been too long that I have been your infant."  
  
Legolas looked at her, eyes shining. Her fever had burned for so long and had been so hot that he had been beginning to fear it had robbed her of speech.  
  
"You are feeling better." he said, placing the date on the corner of the bundle cloth.  
  
"I am alive." She did not look at him again, but only focused on closing her fingers around the sticky surface of the date and bringing it to her mouth. This accomplished, she chewed thoughtfully, and her fingers wandered to one of the braids that hung in front of each ear. She brushed it lightly with her fingertips, flinching, and put her hand back in her lap.  
  
"Why have you done this?" She sounded angry but it was fear that made her words waver. Legolas waited a moment before giving his reply, as the answer was unclear, even to himself. "It is after the fashion of my people. Do you dislike it?"  
  
She was silent then, brooding for a long time, and did not answer his question.  
  
"I will have to leave you today." Legolas said, getting up and turning from her. Arwarthiel watched him, following him with her eyes as he spoke to her. "There are stirrings again in the deep places, legions of dark things are moving." He continued, sighing. "I hope this will be that last time I will have to lead this wearying campaign." He walked over to the table, where he had earlier laid out his armor and weapons of war. He fitted a gauntlet to his forearm and cinched it, frowning. "I cannot return to my home in good faith until the darkness has been driven back and the dwarves rule their kingdom unopposed."  
  
A sardonic smirk spread across Arwarthiels' face, unseen by him. "You will be here a very long time, then," she croaked.  
  
Legolas smiled, but only for a moment. Uneasiness was rising in him now, above the anticipation of the campaign. When she was mute it had been easy to speak to her, because one could not expect a response. Now that she had become fully aware it was another thing entirely, and the weight of his knowledge of her made him feel intensely vulnerable. Silently, he hoped that the many things he had told her had been forgotten in the thrall of her illness. He turned back to the table and cinched on the other gauntlet, took up his ivory handled knives and locked them in their sheath. "I might be gone for a time, the goblins have become bolder than I remember."  
  
"They have much to defend."  
  
Legolas frowned and slung his bow across his back. "Their wretched lives."  
  
Arwarthiel shrugged. "Perhaps." she said quietly. "You will leave me, then."  
  
It was more of a statement than a question, and as he looked at her it was hard to tell if her expression was one of concern or fear or sadness. An awkward silence passed between them. Legolas went to his pack and drew out the book, still wrapped in its cloth. He set it down beside her. "Thank you." she breathed, reaching for it. Her fingers lightly touched its gilded edge and she drew in a sharp breath in pain. Undaunted, she forced herself to drag it to her lap and open it. Legolas rose to his feet. "I will have Giemsa look after you, but I will be back as soon as I am able." Arwarthiel nodded, and looked up from her book expectantly. He looked back at her, at her great dark eyes, and searched for words to say. Ought he to part from her succinctly, as casually as one would a trading associate, this one whose body and pain he knew now with a sense of intimacy he was reluctant to examine?  
  
Arwarthiel's gravelly voice interrupted his thoughts "Do not worry yourself with me, Prince. I have lived thus far; it is likely that I will remain to burden you when you return. Farewell on your journey."  
  
Legolas nodded. "Farewell." 


End file.
